Road to Recovery
by LynaQT
Summary: As a second year ER medicine resident, Alanna goes though emotional upheavals with her career and her love life.


Time and Again ****

Road to Recovery

Chapter 1

Rated PG13 (For trauma in the ER and foul language)

By LynaQT 

E-mail: [Lyna_Q.T@miakaandtamahome.com][1]

Web Site: [www.geocities.com/lynaqt][2]

Disclaimer: The characters are creations of Tamora Pierce. The rest is from my demented mind…LOL.

Chapter 1: a normal Saturday

"We got a trauma. Male in his early thirties caught in a hit and run. GSWs to the abdomen and head. Decreased breath sounds to the right…" The paramedics pushed the gurney with the unconscious, bleeding man into Queenscove County Hospital and straight to Trauma Room 2 giving his vitals to the local emergency medicine resident.

"All right. Sir, can you tell me your name? Do you know what happened to you?" Dr. Alanna Trebond asked as she checked his pupils, bleeding, and airway. "Unresponsive to both light and sound."

"Unconscious at the scene. No ID on him. No one could identify him. No witnesses to the crime. Still unknown as to who shot him or why. Police have no suspects or a weapon."

"We need two pints O-Neg. Type and cross for four more. Use the large-bore IVs, and I need a CBC, crit, coag panel, and peritoneal lavage..." Cool and in control, Dr. Trebond gave her orders to the RNs. She cut off his shirt and thoroughly checked his wounds. "Multiple abrasions to the face and chest. Bullet grazed his head. Minimal damage hopefully. The second…Hold on." She paused to lift the patient to check for an exit wound. "The second went right through him. At this angle, it hit his spleen. The decrease breathing to the right would indicate that…" Alanna gently felt the man's chest for injury. "He probably has a puncture to the right lung from a broken rib. Call for a surgical consult, now! Pass me the intubation tray. I need to maintain an airway." She bagged him and stabilized him for transport. "Where is that surgic—"

"You called, sister dear?" Smiling in his green scrubs, surgical resident Dr. Thom Trebond put on his gloves and went to the patient. "Woah, someone really beat the shit out of you."

"We got punctured lung and spleen. His head was grazed with a bullet. Superficial, but knocked him out. Unresponsive, exactly your type with your crappy bedside manner, big bro. So do you have it under control?"

"Thank you for the compliment, my baby sister by a mere two minutes. I'll take over. We'll be upstairs." 

Nurse Maude saw the exchange, shook her head at their silliness. _Two Trebonds in one hospital! Thank the Goddess, they are in different departments._

***

The rest of Alanna's shift was a test of ethical endurance. She had a gork pedestrian-verses-auto patient, a readmitted renal failure patient, a thirteen-year-old female with cervical cancer, and a male suicidal OD. All survived and were transported to either ICU or a specialist. All in all, it was a pretty normal Saturday for the Emergency Room, but then again when had the ER ever been normal? Alanna got to catch up on her paperwork and medical journals, deliberate over her current boyfriend, and how she was going to tell someone's mother/father/brother/sister/wife/husband/child that their loved one would die. Soon. She'd take a trauma over having to give those kinds of talks any day.

"So how may hits you got today, my twin?" Thom burst into the lounge and went straight for the refrigerator. "Damn Neal! That punk took the last soda and sandwich."

Alanna put down the labs she was going over to give her brother her full attention. "You're just mad that Neal transferred to emergency medicine after you mentored him for two years during his surgical sub-I and actual internship."

"Damn fucking straight! That guy wasted my time and spent more time with the patients talking then he did in the OR." Thom took out an apple and a bottle of milk and slammed the refrigerator door. He took a sip straight from the bottle and immediately spat it out into sink. He checked the expiration date on the milk and cringed. "Milk does the body good, but his crap is more than two weeks old! Shit! Doesn't anyone restock this thing?! That's it! Next time I see that Neal, I'm making him clean out this fridge!"

Alanna raised an elegant eyebrow and tipped her head contemplatively, "Are we allowed to do that?"

"We are second year residents on our way to Chief Resident of our residing specialties. And if I want some punk intern to clean up the green, congealing mold in our refrigerator he better damn well do it!"

She shrugged and gave her two cents on the subject. "You may try, but having Neal do the job wouldn't change the condition of the fridge at all." Alanna paused a moment to muse further, "In fact, it would probably end up being worst. You know his tastes. The only thing in there would be tasteless vanilla pudding and soda. Damn, that boy needs a dietitian. I have no idea how he is making his 36-hour shifts on that."

"Sugar rush. A different sort of adrenaline then the one we had." Thom plopped on the lounge next to his sister and causally tamed his cropped red locks with a brisk hand. "Caffeine was our god. By the way are you planning on finishing that?" Thom had been staring enviously at her Tupperware, which held a healthy chicken salad and was already licking his lips in anticipation. "Please…And I won't make any cracks about that slut you plan on marrying."

Alanna gagged on Crystal Geyser with that remark. "Excuse me, Slut?"

"Yeah, Jonathan Conté. Sells his bod to pre-adolescents in the pretense of an inhuman being. Definition of slut. A person, usually female, who fucks for money. I rest my case."

"Jon is an ACTOR, Thom."

"Same damn difference, so are you going to finish that?" 

She whacked his hand before he even got a grubby finger on her salad. "I'll have you know that Jon was the one that bought me this."

Thom gave an exaggerated sigh and teased, "Oh dear sister, I already surmised THAT. Pul-lease, if you had made it, knowing your cooking skill, I wouldn't be asking for it. Hmm, there is one decent quality about your boy toy 'ack-tor.' He does get paid quite well for some odd reason I'll never understand. But then again, you both lead constantly busy separate lives and when you do reunite, which comes every blue moon or so, you have to wear some frock with six-inch heels and war paint. Thank Mithros, I was born a man!"

Alanna tossed her brother the salad. She knew that he was purposely trying to spark her temper. "We get together whenever we can. With his movie star success and my shifts in the ER, coordinating dates can get hectic. And I'll have you know that I don't usually dress like this for him," Alanna went to the mirror and automatically assessed her appearance. Her facial features were delicate and pretty. Her dimples and short stature gave the impression of youth, and yet her chin indicated a stubborn, and her eyes the determined will of the experience woman she was. She would never pass as gorgeous, but her striking coloring was what drew people to her. Her red hair, which was mid-back length if let down, was in an elegant French twist and her eyes a brilliant violet were emphasized by painstakingly applied makeup and the pale purple spaghetti strap dress. "But I'm getting the feeling that this is the day he'll pop the question."

"Damn, and here I though the guy had the balls to ask already. So what are you going to say? Yes. No. Maybe. Not in you life, you low callous bastard. Fuck off. What?" Thom set aside the salad to hear what kind of twisted logic allowed her and that play boy movie star's relationship to survive for so long. 

Alanna resisted the urge to knock him flat with her stethoscope and put some distance between them. "Quite frankly, I'm not getting any younger and Jon is still that guy I grew up with that was my best friend. Your best friend too, if I remember correctly."

Thom watched his sister put her stethoscope and white lab coat into her locker and retrieve her purse. "Shit, he still is when he is not dating my baby sister."

With a genuine chuckle at her brother's protectiveness, she swung her purse over one shoulder. "I'm going and for the record I was hit hard today. I treated five patients, including the GSW from earlier today, but each one was difficult in their own ways."

"We almost had to hand the guy the Bible so he could study for the big final in the sky. He crashed on the OR table, but a couple shocks and he came back. He's still unresponsive. The CAT showed no signs of brain damage. If you want to see him he's in ICU under the name John Doe, since we still have no ID on the guy." Thom reopened the Tupperware and began chewing. "Poor guy. He got pounded into next weeks meatloaf surprise, but he's breathing and on the road to recovery." Thom put down his fork to check his Rolex. "Shit. I better go and start another shift. I'm covering for Doc Numair Salmalín. That fucker has another unbreakable date tonight. What has that piece of snot have that I don't?!"

Alanna pretended to contemplate that question seriously. "Oh, I don't know. He is tall, dark, and handsome and not only that, but he has charm and unlike you he watches his language." She ruffled her brother's hair and gave him a kiss on the forehead. "I'll visit our John Doe and then I'm going on that date with Jon. I'll take everything one step at a time. Don't worry."

"I'll try to suppress the urge." Thom looked into her violet with solemn eyes. "I just don't want my baby sister hurt. You're all I got."

Alanna hesitated before leaving the room, "These extra shifts are making you so cranky, your natural charisma isn't apparent at all. Get some rest, okay." She gave a smile before leaving with the ritual "Love you, remember me this way" parting.

***

There was John Doe. He lay quiet among the constant monitored beating of his heart. Alanna checked his labs and vitals to assure herself that at least one patient today was a saved. He still bore many tubes and IVs, but he was taken off the respirator and stable if not responsive. She tucked his sheets more securely around him and brushed his raven hair off his face. "Well, you fought the good fight, and you survived. For right now, it's okay that you rest, but tomorrow you better open those gorgeous hazel eyes and show us all that we achieved something today."

***

A/N. So what do you think? I'm SUCH an ER freak!! This has been bothering me and interfering with my creative flow for Time and Again, so I decided to write it and see if it works and get it out of my head. READ and REVIEW!! I need to know if this is worth continuing…but I'll need reviews to convince me…LOL! Work that little box on the bottom of this page…

I'm not a doc or studying to be one. I just watch HECKA ER and all this jargon is from that…so it isn't exactly correct, just sounds impressive…

Oh, and Alanna and Thom should be 26 or so…I'm still figuring out a plot.

So what do you think of my version of the Alternate U! Read and Review! © LynaQT, August 2001

   [1]: mailto:Lyna_Q.T@miakaandtamahome.com
   [2]: http://www.geocities.com/lynaqt



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